


Bones in the Sea

by booktick



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Episode: c02e030 The Journey Home, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Lost Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Moving On, Near Death Experiences, POV Fjord, Regret, Sad with a Happy Ending, Wildemount Campaign, Wildemount Campaign Setting, mention of other characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-07 06:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18231161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booktick/pseuds/booktick
Summary: "I want to keep Molly with us, though. With me."





	Bones in the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own none of this franchise.
> 
> A/N: First CR fic posted, I hope it's enjoyable. I had a lot of fun writing in Fjord's POV. The tense in this fic is...all over the place, just a quick warning before anyone reads it.

* * *

They had left that gnome town--Hupperdook, he thinks it was called--on a high note. And like most things with the Mighty Nein, too damn often really, it meant a low one was right at their heels. He had told himself plenty of times, a lot of should haves and could haves. He could have ran but that seemed cowardly. He could have woken up Beau, but he felt he would have endangered her too. He never wanted any of his friends to get hurt...not like _this_...not _ever_.

When it was just the three of them, he tried to focus on them. To think of a way out, there was always a way out, an opening they just had to wait on. He knew the moment the group woke up though...Beau would be first in line to come looking for them. All Fjord hoped for was the trail to get cold and damn did that make him feel ugly deep inside. It'd be easier to escape without more people rushing in. This had been his last ditch effort thought process, to keep it together long enough for Jester and Yasha, to escape. It was to believe escaping  _was_ at all possible in the first place.

If they came after them, all angry and on alert like he was? All it had taken was a look at that mean son of a bitch, Lorenzo, to know it'd end bloody and  _wrong_. But Fjord wasn't there to tell the rest of the group that. He had to hold Jester's hands when he could actually move, keep a good squeeze on them to let her know the sailor in him was still kickin'. Yasha, on the other hand, even with how shut off she seemed inside the cages...he could never get that look of hers out of his mind. If she had her blade and was out of chains, someone would be dead by the end of it--regardless if she was able to get away or not.

The big fella, Lorenzo, _damn_ did he like to talk though. It went through one ear and out the other for Fjord. He didn't hear much about where they were, no indication of how far they had traveled since getting their latest...'batch of product'. The thought still sent shivers down his spine, had his stomach tighten up fast. It hadn't been hard to recognize Lorenzo as the leader, the person everyone looked to for direction, to be told what to do. A guy like _that_ though, that was so cocksure about _everything_ , was troubling. It meant potential failure was never seen in his cards and if things seemed to be going south for him, this guy would for sure go all out to achieve his own success. It had all been too familar and too much for Fjord.

Fjord, who had often looked forward to waking and experiencing a new day, found himself yearning for darkness to take him and let him sleep away this nightmare. When he slept, it wasn't his patron that came to him but a purple tiefling with a big mouth. He knew that wild bastard would go off and get into trouble without an anchor at his side.

It had felt a bit selfish, felt a bit wrong, to be mad at Molly for dying like he did. It had been Lorenzo that buried Mollymauk Tealeaf. The Iron Shepherds had swooped in and ran out come Dawn with three of them, without so much as a slap on the wrist and then they took a fourth for no good reason other than pure bloodlust.

Beau says they took down one of theirs when Molly died, then the rest of the bastards a few days later. It doesn't lessen the sting for him, for none of them. Yasha screams and it's like everything was muffled before that. He can finally hear all those truths all over again, only louder and clearer this time. He doesn't like what's said, doesn't like what he knows. Molly got in Lorenzo's face? Of course Molly did. And Molly was dead. Went out swinging, like some damn martyr. But he figured the tielfing wouldn't see it like that...

The last time he even spoke with Molly. The words seem so far away and gone from his tongue. The ears that heard him are stiff in the ground, the hands that touched him are cold and the kisses exchanged in alleyways are only in his head and will never again come to pass. Fjord stood there, staring at his hands, unsure what to do with himself. In his head, he was so worked up and stuck in the past...he can't embrace the Molly he sees in his head. Molly's not here anymore. Molly's gone.

And now. Now he's with what's left of his friends and a grave.

He turns his head, eyes heavy from the world today. His lips are dry, cracking under the cold, and he aches right down to his very bones. Nearly drowning wasn't as bad as this was. He can see the grave, it's as jarring as it was the first time he saw it coming up. That multicolored jacket at the grave, kissed by snow and death. But they have new with the old here too. The Firbolg stands not too far off, pink and full of life, and Fjord doesn't mean to be angry by that. He tried to focus on why he wanted to stop here, on Molly. He had to figure out how to...honor him. _Somehow_. There had to be a way to do something like that.

There was no making this right but...if they could keep doing good? Keep...saving people. Keep on moving forward. Maybe that was something good. Something  _right_. And if they stepped on a few more toes so be it. So long as they worked together, stayed together...had an actual plan that made sense. Molly would have wanted that... _maybe_. The burn inside Fjord only grows with each breath he gets to take and Molly doesn't. 

 _Molly was dead_. How does someone love the dead? He supposed a lot like how he loved Vandren. How he had loved Sabian...

Fjord curled his fingers into his palms as he took a deep breath. All this anger and no where to put it just yet. He didn't get to put an end to Lorenzo. He was the one rescued this time. He survived this time. He was alive. He was _alive_. He made it out. And, yes, Molly was dead...but so was Lorenzo and the rest of the Iron Shepherds. All Fjord could think of after that was on how he hoped Lorenzo felt as alone, terrified and vulnerable as he had in those last breaths. He hoped that mean bastard _suffered_.

What was it Lorenzo said? _An eye for an eye._


End file.
